Loudmouth Chris Moyles’s bid to launch a TV career has taken a major blow after Channel 4 axed his show, privately declaring that ‘he just doesn’t work on screen’.
Since being dumped by Radio 1’s breakfast show, Moyles, 39, has made TV stardom his goal, even shedding over 5st to be more appealing to HD cameras.
The DJ has also cut ties with his loyal agent of ten years, Vivienne Clore, to sign with James Grant, the agency that represents prime-time stars Ant and Dec, Holly Willoughby and Vernon Kay.
However, Channel 4 bosses have decided Chris Moyles’s Quiz Night, which ran for six series between 2008 and 2012, will not return. And they do not want to work with the DJ on another project.
Meanwhile, Sky Living dating show, Love Machine, which he hosts with former X Factor contestant Stacey Solomon, is also unlikely to be back.
My Channel 4 insider explains: ‘We tried with Chris. But the reality is he just doesn’t work on screen.
'Viewers never took to him. The problem wasn’t with the Quiz Night format, it was with Chris himself.’
Moyles had hoped to make another series of Quiz Night following his stint as King Herod in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
But it is now back to the drawing board. A source close to him tells me: ‘He’s in America working on new projects.
Channel 4 was never the be all and end all to his future on TV. He’s very confident of having big news soon.’
However, Moyles has infuriated executives at the BBC since they replaced him on Radio 1’s breakfast show with Nick Grimshaw because he was considered too old for the youth station.
He’s been taken off the BBC payroll after he refused to consider a new role, despite being on a £1 million, two-year contract until 2014.
The following file has been added to the SoundVault:
Jedward Do Drops, 24.11.09 [download] - Entertainment reporter Sinead interviews Jedward and invites them to do some drops for Chris' show, but it doesn't go too well.
We had to remove two of our download servers which has caused some disruption to downloads over the past week or so. I'm pleased to say that we have now replaced these with three new machines.
Thanks very much to the people at 3Core Networks, thirteen.pm and forum member JamesH for their support.
We would still very much like to hear from you if you have a server which has some capacity and would be able to help us out with a mirror. The more servers we can add, the less the load on any individual machine and network. Data transfer from a mirror is around 150GB/month with (currently) 25GB of storage being required. The server would need to be fast, Linux/Unix-based and have SSH access (for automated mirror synchronisation). If you think that you could help, please contact me at chris@chrismoyles.net, your help would be very much appreciated.
For technical reasons you may find that some of the streaming previews previously posted to the news pages no longer function, however the downloads themselves are available and if you prefer to stream the clip then a working link can be found on the file download page.
Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles has had an attempt to keep his involvement in a tax-avoidance scheme out of the public eye rejected by a high court judge.
Though there is no suggestion that Moyles acted illegally, The Times reports that the former Breakfast Show host was paying a nominal amount of tax and had attempted to gag the press from reporting this fact. It is not clear if he sought to avoid tax on BBC earnings, something which would be breach of his reported £500,000 annual contract with the public-funded corporation.
Moyles' bid to silence the press was described by his lawyer as being motivated by the fact his career might be damaged through the subsequent bad publicity, and that his earning capacity would be reduced. Judge Colin Bishop summed up the case by stating that: “If it were to become public knowledge that he availed himself of a tax avoidance scheme, his career might be damaged and his earning capacity reduced. He is already the focus of media interest for other reasons, much of it hostile."
However, he continued to reject Moyles' bid for privacy, saying: "The fact that a taxpayer is rich, or that he is in the public eye, does not seem to me to dictate a different approach. On the contrary, it may be that hearing the appeal of such a person in private would give rise to the suspicion that riches or fame can buy anonymity, and protection from the scrutiny which others cannot avoid.”
